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Sunday, February 19, 2012

Blast from the Past: Simple Chandy Decor

Many of you who follow The Homeless Finch found me way after I started blogging. I remember days gone by when I was working in my studio, blogging about my projects and I only had about 20 followers who were mainly friends from my 'real' world life. Because of this, I have decided to bring to you from time to time some of my Blasts From the Past Blog Posts. Ya know...stuff I did before you found me, but stuff I think is worthy to re-visit and highlight. I am calling these my "Blast From The Past Posts" and on days like today, I will re-introduce them. For those who missed this stuff....hope you enjoy!

This post was published within the first 2 weeks of my blog back in April of 2011. I have been spending a lot of time in the last few days re-evaluating The Homeless Finch and trying to connect with why I started to blog in the first place. This was my first tutorial. I think the project is worthy enough to re-post. I was still using flash, so excuse the quality of some of the images.

Blast from the Past: How to: Simple Chandelier Decor

So, as promised, here is my "How To" project on how to simply dress up your dining room light fixture for Spring. (and summer if you forget to take it down) You don't need a lot of supplies to make this happen. Above is an image of my dining room chandelier. Pretty cool, eh? I bought it several years back at one of my favorite stores that has since closed down. I have had it in three of my homes and will never ever sell it with a house.

Supplies

Pair of pliers (Preferably a pair that also does wire cutting)

Green twist tie (I buy it by the roll and use it for everything. It's great for tying up kids.)

Long stemmed flowers.

I quick comment about how to pick the right flower for your home. I just painted the interior of my house. It needed a fresh color. As you can see in the background of this image, I chose an asparagus green. It's bright and happy. When I saw these roses, the touches of green were similar to my new walls, so I knew they would look awesome. So, pay attention to the colors in your room even if you would call it neutral. Take that color as a cue. It helps.

So, take your long stem flower and temporarily take off the leaves. They just get in the way and you can pop them back on later. Besides, you might damage the fragile leaves in the process. (Learned that one the hard way.) Next you are going to start forming the ring buy bending the stem into a circle. See below.

You might need to use your pliers to bend this in areas that the wire inside the stem is stiff. Next, you will start to weave the stem over and under itself while working it in a circle. This keeps the ring intact by locking them together. (See below)

Keep bending and working the stem around itself weaving up and over and back down again. If the flower falls off, or if it is easier to weave this without the flower on the end, feel free to remove it temporarily. You can add it back on later. (See below)

See that end in the upper part of the above image? I use my pliers to bend it back into the circle. A lot of these stems are just too stuff to only use your fingers and hand. I then secured that end with the entire ring with a 2 inch piece of my floral tie twisted tightly around it. I used my the wire cutter part of the pliers to trim the ends of the floral twist tie. (See below)

Now place your flower (if you removed it) back onto the stem. If you need to, use a glue gun to secure it back in place. Find the little 'poky things' that your leaves were previously attached to and work them back onto the ring. In some cases, I didn't like the location of that poky thing, so I just used a little of that green twisty tie and placed one where I wanted it. Work it however you chose. I didn't always return every leaf to the ring. I will keep the extras for a future project.

So this is what it should like like..... Only....I am sure that I twisted that leaf around so that the nice green side shows forward with the flower. (wink)

You can add a wrap with some nice ribbon at this point, but I preferred the simplicity of the green thorny stems. (I didn't appreciate the blister the plastic thorns gave me on my left pointer finger.) Moving on, slip the little ring over your candlestick, or light bulb....whatever is there......like this.....

I have ten candlesticks on this chandelier, so I repeated this 10 times. I used an assortment of roses that were in the same collection, yet slightly different from each other. You can keep it consistent, by using the same flower or mix it up. It's your choice. After all it's your home.

So, here are the results!

Pretty cool I think. I did this entire project for 10 dollars, but I think it looks like a million bucks!

Remember, every path is worth taking.

Hope you enjoyed this re-published blog post. I removed these roses and replaced them with sunflowers during the summer. I can't find the darn bag with these roses in it!!! Wanna come over and help me look?!